Alice of Old Vincennes Part 12

"Let's have one more roaring good time," he said, "that's what life is for."

CHAPTER VII

THE MAYOR'S PARTY

Beverley was so surprised and confused in his mind by the ease with which he had been mastered at swordplay by a mere girl, that he felt as if just coming out of a dream. In fact the whole affair seemed unreal, yet so vivid and impressive in all its main features, that he could not emerge from it and look it calmly over from without. His experience with women had not prepared him for a ready understanding and acceptance of a girl like Alice. While he was fully aware of her beauty, freshness, vivacity and grace, this Amazonian strength of hers, this boldness of spirit, this curious mixture of frontier crudeness and a certain adumbration--so to call it--of patrician sensibilities and aspirations, affected him both pleasantly and unpleasantly. He did not sympathize promptly with her semi-barbaric costume; she seemed not gently feminine, as compared with the girls of Virginia and Maryland.

He resented her muscular development and her independent disposition.

She was far from coa.r.s.eness, however, and, indeed, a trace of subtle refinement, although not conventional, imbued her whole character.

But why was he thinking so critically about her? Had his selfishness received an incurable shock from the b.u.t.ton of her foil? A healthy young man of the right sort is apt to be jealous of his physical prowess--touch him there and he will turn the world over to right himself in, his own admiration and yours. But to be beaten on his highest ground of virility by a dimple-faced maiden just leaving her teens could not offer Beverley any open way to recoupment of damages.

He tried to shake her out of his mind, as a bit of pretty and troublesome rubbish, what time he pursued his not very exacting military duties. But the more he shook the tighter she clung, and the oftener he went to see her.

Helm was a good officer in many respects, and his patriotism was of the best; but he liked jolly company, a gla.s.s of something strong and a large share of ease. Detroit lay many miles northeastward across the wilderness, and the English, he thought, would scarcely come so far to attack his little post, especially now that most of the Indians in the intervening country had declared in favor of the Americans. Recently, too, the weather had been favoring him by changing from wet to dry, so that the upper Wabash and its tributaries were falling low and would soon be very difficult to navigate with large batteaux.

Very little was done to repair the stockade and dilapidated remnant of a blockhouse. There were no sufficient barracks, a mere shed in one angle serving for quarters, and the old cannon could not have been used to any effect in case of attack. As for the garrison, it was a nominal quant.i.ty, made up mostly of men who preferred hunting and fishing to the merest pretense of military duty.

Gaspard Roussillon a.s.sumed to know everything about Indian affairs and the condition of the English at Detroit. His optimistic eloquence lulled Helm to a very pleasant sense of security. Beverley was not so easy to satisfy; but his suggestions regarding military discipline and a vigorous prosecution of repairs to the blockhouse and stockade were treated with dilatory geniality by his superior officer. The soft wonder of a perfect Indian summer glorified land, river and sky. Why not dream and bask? Why not drink exhilarating toddies?

Meantime the entertainment to be given by Gaspard Roussillon occupied everybody's imagination to an unusual extent. Rene de Ronville, remembering but not heeding the doubtful success of his former attempt, went long beforehand to claim Alice as his partenaire; but she flatly refused him, once more reminding him of his obligations to little Adrienne Bourcier. He would not be convinced.

"You are bound to me," he said, "you promised before, you know, and the party was but put off. I hold you to it; you are my partenaire, and I am yours, you can't deny that."

"No you are not my partenaire," she firmly said; then added lightly, "Feu mon partenaire, you are dead and buried as my partner at that dance."

He glowered in silence for a few moments, then said:

"It is Lieutenant Beverley, I suppose."

She gave him a quick contemptuous look, but turned it instantly into one of her tantalising smiles.

"Do you imagine that?" she demanded.

"Imagine it! I know it," he said with a hot flush. "Have I no sense?"

"Precious little," she replied with a merry laugh.

"You think so."

"Go to Father Beret, tell him everything, and then ask him what he thinks," she said in a calm, even tone, her face growing serious.

There was an awkward silence.

She had touched Rene's vulnerable spot; he was nothing if not a devout Catholic, and his conscience rooted itself in what good Father Beret had taught him.

The church, no matter by what name it goes, Catholic or Protestant, has a saving hold on the deepest inner being of its adherents. No grip is so hard to shake off as that of early religious convictions. The still, small voice coming down from the times "When shepherds watched their flocks by night," in old Judea, pa.s.ses through the priest, the minister, the preacher; it echoes in cathedral, church, open-air meeting; it gently and mysteriously imparts to human life the distinctive quality which is the exponent of Christian civilization.

Upon the receptive nature of children it makes an impress that forever afterward exhales a fragrance and irradiates a glory for the saving of the nations.

Father Beret was the humble, self-effacing, never-tiring agent of good in his community. He preached in a tender sing-song voice the sweet monotonies of his creed and the sublime truths of Christ's code. He was indeed the spiritual father of his people. No wonder Rene's scowling expression changed to one of abject self-concern when the priest's name was suddenly connected with his mood. The confessional loomed up before the eyes of his conscience, and his knees smote together, spiritually if not physically.

"Now," said Alice, brusquely, but with sweet and gentle firmness, "go to your fiancee, go to pretty and good Adrienne, and ask her to be your partenaire. Refresh your conscience with a n.o.ble draught of duty and make that dear little girl overflow with joy. Go, Rene de Ronville."

In making over what she said into English, the translation turns out to be but a sonorous paraphrase. Her French was of that mixed creole sort, a blending of linguistic elegance and patois, impossible to imitate.

Like herself it was beautiful, crude, fascinating, and something in it impressed itself as unimpeachable, despite the broken and incongruous diction. Rene felt his soul cowering, even slinking; but he fairly maintained a good face, and went away without saying another word.

"Ciel, ciel, how beautiful she is!" he thought, as he walked along the narrow street in the dreamy sunshine. "But she is not for me, not for me."

He shook himself and tried to be cheerful. In fact he hummed a Creole ditty, something about

"La belle Jeanette, qu' a brise mon coeur."

Days pa.s.sed, and at last the time of the great event arrived. It was a frosty night, clear, sparkling with stars, a keen breath cutting down from the northwest. M. Roussillon, Madame Roussillon, Alice and Lieutenant Beverley went together to the river house, whither they had been preceded by almost the entire population of Vincennes. Some fires had been built outside; the crowd proving too great for the building's capacity, as there had to be ample s.p.a.ce for the dancers. Merry groups hovered around the flaming logs, while within the house a fiddle sang its simple and ravishing tunes. Everybody talked and laughed; it was a lively racket of clashing voices and rhythmical feet.

You would have been surprised to find that Oncle Jazon was the fiddler; but there he sat, perched on a high stool in one corner of the large room, sawing away as if for dear life, his head wagging, his elbow leaping back and forth, while his scalpless crown shone like the side of a peeled onion and his puckered mouth wagged grotesquely from side to side keeping time to his tuneful sc.r.a.ping.

When the Roussillon party arrived it attracted condensed attention. Its importance, naturally of the greatest in the a.s.sembled popular mind, was enhanced--as mathematicians would say, to the nth power--by the gown of Alice. It was resplendent indeed in the simple, unaccustomed eyes upon which it flashed with a buff silken glory. Matrons stared at it; maidens gazed with fascinated and jealous vision; men young and old let their eyes take full liberty. It was as if a queen, arrayed in a robe of state, had entered that dingy log edifice, an apparition of dazzling and awe-inspiring beauty. Oncle Jazon caught sight of her, and snapped his tune short off. The dancers swung together and stopped in confusion. But she, fortified by a woman's strongest bulwark, the sense of resplendency, appeared quite unconscious of herself.

Little Adrienne, hanging in blissful delight upon Rene's strong arm, felt the stir of excitement and wondered what was the matter, being too short to see over the heads of those around her.

"What is it? what is it?" she cried, tiptoeing and tugging at her companion's sleeve. "Tell me, Rene, tell me, I say."

Rene was gazing in dumb admiration into which there swept a powerful anger, like a breath of flame. He recollected how Alice had refused to wear that dress when he had asked her, and now she had it on. Moreover, there she stood beside Lieutenant Beverley, holding his arm, looking up into his face, smiling, speaking to him.

"I think you might tell me what has happened," said Adrienne, pouting and still plucking at his arm. "I can't see a thing, and you won't tell me."

"Oh, it's nothing," he presently answered, rather fretfully. Then he stooped, lowered his voice and added; "it's Mademoiselle Roussillon all dressed up like a bride or something. She's got on a buff silk dress that Mo'sieu' Roussillon's mother had in France."

"How beautiful she must look!" cried the girl. "I wish I could see her."

Rene put a hand on each side of her slender waist and lifted her high, so that her pretty head rose above the crowding people. Alice chanced to turn her face that way just then and saw the unconventional performance. Her eyes met those of Adrienne and she gave a nod of smiling recognition. It was a rose beaming upon a gilliflower.

M. Roussillon naturally understood that all this stir and crowding to see was but another demonstration of his personal popularity. He bowed and waved a vast hand.

But the master of ceremonies called loudly for the dancers to take their places. Oncle Jazon attacked his fiddle again with startling energy. Those who were not to dance formed a compact double line around the wall, the shorter ones in front, the taller in the rear. And what a scene it was! but no person present regarded it as in any way strange or especially picturesque, save as to the gown of Alice, which was now floating and whirling in time to Oncle Jazon's mad music. The people outside the house cheerfully awaited their turn to go in while an equal number went forth to chat and sing around the fires.

Beverley was in a young man's seventh heaven. The angels formed a choir circling around his heart, and their song brimmed his universe from horizon to horizon.

When he called at Roussillon place, and Alice appeared so beautifully and becomingly robed, it was another memorable surprise. She flashed a new and subtly stimulating light upon him. The old gown, rich in subdued splendor of lace and brocade, was ornamented at the throat with a heavy band of pearls, just above which could be seen a trace of the gold chain that supported her portrait locket. There, too, with a not unbecoming gleam of barbaric colors, shone the string of porcupine beads to which the Indian charmstone hidden in her bosom was attached.

It all harmonized with the time, the place, the atmosphere. Anywhere else it would have been preposterous as a decorative presentment, but here, in this little nook where the coureurs de bois, the half-breeds, the traders and the missionaries had founded a centre of a.s.sembly, it was the best possible expression in the life so formed at hap-hazard, and so controlled by the coa.r.s.est and narrowest influences. To Fitzhugh Beverley, of Beverley Hall, the picture conveyed immediately a sweet and pervading influence.

Alice looked superbly tall, stately and self-possessed in her transforming costume, a woman of full stature, her countenance gravely demure yet reserving near the surface the playful dimples and mischievous smiles so characteristic of her more usual manner. A sudden mood of the varium et mutabile semper femina had led her to wear the dress, and the mood still illuminated her.

Beverley stood before her frankly looking and admiring. The underglow in her cheeks deepened and spread over her perfect throat; her eyes met his a second, then shyly avoided him. He hardly could have been sure which was master, her serenity or her girlish delight in being attractively dressed; but there could be no doubt as to her self-possession; for, saving the pretty blush under his almost rude gaze of admiration, she bore herself as firmly as any fine lady he remembered.